Sick Day :(

What unfortunate timing.. I woke up this morning with a pretty bad sore throat. I could barely talk and was coughing/sneezing up phlegm. Just the thought of trying to train was unbearable so I quickly texted my coaches and was told not to return till I'm 100%.

More to come later. Breakfast time!

Okay, back from breakfast! Since I'm not feeling the greatest, I had a clear vegetable soup, an orange and a grapefruit with plain yogurt with sunflower seeds on top. I also took 4 chinese herbal pills, 'Natural XiaoYanLing', which claim it can "clear away heat and toxic material". Let's see if it helps!

But back to a little badminton history about myself. For those who know me, I am definitely not the fittest player out there. From what I can gather, I am described as a talented player who can bring variety and speed to the game. I have only started training the amount of hours posted below for a couple of weeks so of course my fitness still lacks quite a bit. When I was 18 (the year I won my first nationals) I was only training on average twice a week, 3 hours each session. And yes, I have been pretty much doing those twice a week training for the past 3-4 years.

Now you may ask, why only twice a week? How does one improve by only training 6 hours in one week?!!?
WHY: After graduating high school, I was enrolled to attend Langara College in September. My dad told me he wanted me to take this entrance exam to get into the Electrical Apprenticeship Program just to see how I would do. My exam was near the end of July. I passed with a 92% and was called in to get an interview. Apparently, since I've never used a tool in my life before, I was given a "NO" and was not allowed to go into their Pre-Apprenticeship course. Having my father working at Western Pacific Enterprises (one of the biggest electrical contractors in BC) for around 25-26 years, the company hired me and put me to work as green and newb as one can be. I had no idea what kind of work I was going to do but thank you sweet Jesus I was a quick learner and was good with working with my hands. Ever since the beginning of August 2005, I have been working full-time, 40 hours a week as much as I could till now. This is the first time I have been actually laid off.
So, why did I only train twice a week?? As an apprentice electrician, I work on construction sites. I've worked on, to name a few, Surrey City Central, ICORD, Canada Line, Skytrain, and BC Place. Contruction hours start from 7:00am-3:20pm with some job sites starting at 6:30am-2:50pm. A lot of physical labour is involved and I have to say, even training those 2 sessions a week.. it was very difficult to find that drive to just go out and give whatever left I had to train.

HOW: Training 6 hours a week, how did I get better? I'm not 100% sure but I'll tell you what I did do. I truely believe the mental part of badminton is extremely important. Your mind controls what your body does so it is very important to train mentally as well as training physically. When I was not playing badminton, I often imagine myself playing. But not playing as myself. I would imagine if I was Tony Gunawan. But why stop there? I imagined I was playing as Kim Dong Moon, Chandra Wijaya, and so on and so on.. I imagined myself doing what I liked about them. That I was playing the front court as well as Tony, playing the control/technical game like Kim, and forcefully charging in with a super hard drive like Chandra. If you can understand that these people are just human.. that they were not born with supernatural badminton powers... and that if you visualize yourself doing these things and to push yourself to their level, you will be amazed how fast your game will improve.
Just ask yourself next time, if I swing exactly as Koo Kien Keat does to do a cross court drive, and I time it exactly as he does, shouldnt I be able to do a cross court drive? Maybe I'm not as strong as he is right now, but power can be achieved easier and faster than skill IMO.
So go on youtube and watch local tournaments! Start visualizing your potential!